2018 Flying Star Feng Shui

Xuan Kong Fei Xing

WHAT ARE FLYING STARS AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Health, happiness, prosperity are important to everyone. The art of Feng Shui was developed to help people understand their surroundings and maximize the good parts while minimizing the bad. Flying Star Feng Shui is a guide to helping determine those energies in your environment and how best to deal with them. The Feng Shui compass school (Flying Stars) is the oldest form of Feng Shui and perhaps the most complicated. Because of its complexity, many consultants do not use it. But it is, in my opinion, the most realistic, specific, and effective. Sometimes, we need to correct for malevant influences, sometimes we need to enhance positive ones. But this is life. To attempt to move the directions of the compass because some are inauspicious seems trite and unrealistic. Acknowledging and working with the spectrum of both good and bad will lead to a happy, healthy, prosprous life.

A Little History

Once, long ago, the Chinese Emperor Fu Xi was sitting on the bank of the River Luo. Out from the river crawled a tortoise. The pattern on his back gave Emperor Fu Xi a vision of how the universe was ordered. This order or flow of energy involves the 5 Elements. Fu Xi expressed them as both numbers and in a binary code known as trigrams. This system was later applied to a universal and cosmic philosophy of space and time.The trigrams have correspondences in astronomy, astrology, geography, geomancy, anatomy, the family, and elsewhere. Fu Xi arranged them in a way that indicated the primordial alignment of the Five Elements, or as the Huotian Bagua 先天八卦. Several thousand years later, King Wen is said to have arranged these Trigrams to represent the manifest earth, or the Later Heaven sequence 後天八卦. They represent the 8 directions of the magnetic compass or BAGUA 八卦 and correlate to the 5 Elements. They are also associated with numbers and the stars of the Big Dipper. This map of the 8 directions is the Luo Shu 洛书 or Luo River Scroll. This map is also called the “magic square.” Adding the numbers on this pattern vertically, horizontally or diagonally, one arrives at a sum of 15. Each of the Luo Shu numbers and related trigrams became associated with patterns in the ever evolving universe and the interpretation can found in the art of Flying Star Feng Shui. This is an integration of the numerology, the 5 Elements, Yin and Yang theory.

The Divination system called the I-Ching is derived from these trigrams. Each trigram is paired with another of the 8 to make a total of 64. They chart the path of the ancient Zhou Dynasty’s conquer of the evil Shang. The I-Ching is simply the Book of Change.

The Chinese understood the rotation of the earth and the constantly changing relationship of the earth to the stars and planets. The Luo Shu was used to determine how these positions affected humans. These ‘Stars’ of the Luo Shu are magnetic energies said to be flowing through and around the earth. They have a direct correlation to the Big Dipper constellation. These energies flow from 3600 based on an actual compass reading using magnetic North as a guidepost. This pattern for a home or office is determined by the sitting and facing directions of the structure. A formula allows this pattern to also be applied to a human birth chart.

The Lou Shu chart is a simplification of the 3600 of a compass. The Luo Pan, a classical Feng Shui tool, (shown left) was developed to facilitate a Feng Shui reading. A Luo Pan has a built-in compass and the expanding rings on the face of the Luo Pan provide all the pertinent information for each degree of the compass. The compass is used to determine the setting of the building and the information about what each degree means is also provided on the tool.

Your home or office has a so-called “birth chart” based on when it was built and how it sits in the land. These aspects do not change, but, since the earth is constantly moving through space and time, your home or office is therefore subject to the changes in magnetic energy influenced by this movement. Thus, each month, day, hour and even minute, there are different energies. For the lots of fun, one might examine all these aspects regarding one’s home, office, town, county, country, hemisphere to determine the auspicious and inauspicious energies… do you get the picture? Just as in the West, an almanac would reflect these energies through the seasons, the Chinese almanac is called a Tongshu. You may consult a Tongshu for these readings. [Master Astrologer Robert Fenwick has a great one at Tongshu.com.] This article addresses only the yearly stars and you can decide how deeply you would like to investigate your surroundings. The chart with 8 subdivisions (shown below) is commonly referred to as the Bagua, Luo Shu, or Magic Square.

The Luo Shu for 2018

The graphic to the left is the Luo Shu chart for 2018. In Chinese numerology, the numbers 1, 6, 8, are generally auspicious, while 2, 5, 3, and 7 are inauspicious. 4 and 9 are neutral. (detailed meanings in the chart below)

ANNUAL AFFLICTIONS

Every year, there are five malevolent energies that “Fly” or move around the Bagua. Two are inauspicious Stars, and three are other energies that move based on planetary movement, primarily the planet Jupiter. Tai Sui (Grand Duke Jupiter), Wu Wang (Five Yellow), Sui Po (Year Breaker), San Sha (3 Killings)

SPECIAL AFFLICTIONS for 2018:

Tai Sui (Grand Duke Jupiter), — WNW — 150 = 292.50 to 307.50

Sui Po (Year Breaker) — ESE — 150 = 112.50– 127.50

San Sha (3 Killings) — North sector

Wu Wang (Five Yellow) —North

Black 2 – West

What this means:

Do not disturb (no construction) the Grand Duke (292.50 to 307.50) or Year Breaker (ESE 262.50 to 277.50)

Do not face the Grand Duke ( WNW 292.50 to 307.50).

Instead, face the Year Breaker (ESE 262.50 to 277.50)

Do not turn your back on the 3 Killings (North Sector)

Avoid construction and unnecessary activity in the North, West, or The Grand Duke placement

General Principles

As a rule, one would place cures first, then enhancements. If you have objects, plants, paintings etc. you have used in the past, remove them from their place, clean them and then replace them either in the same place, or another spot indicated by the new year. In classical Feng Shui, mountains generate energy and rivers conduct energy. In an urban setting and in a home, one would use objects to generate energy and movement to conduct this energy. In an urban setting, Mountains can also be other buildings (outside the home) or furniture, appliances, pictures, plants, vases, etc., inside the building. Virtual rivers would be roadways while wind, flowing water, moving hands of a clock, etc. would conduct energy inside a home or office. We use the principles of the 5 Element Theory to decide what to use to balance a home or office and, thus, how to reduce harmful energy (a cure) and enhance auspicious energy. Ideally, this is done before the Solar New Year, February 4, 2018 but anytime is better than not at all.

As most of you know, I prescribe a variety of cures and enhancements. First and foremost, using nature and the principles of the 5 Elements is the most effective way to balance a home or office. I believe that once one understands the basic premise of the energy that a homeowner may use objects, colors, paintings etc. which are in keeping with one’s own personal beliefs to attract different energies to effect a cure for misfortune. The idea is to use objects or colors which will attract a certain energy, based on balancing the 5 Elements, to balance noxious energies or enhance auspicious ones. You are much better served with something you love and feel a connection to instead of adopting a cultural icon to which you have no connection.

RANT: Some prognosticators preach gloom and doom only try to sell very expensive so-called “cures” without which, you are assured, you will experience anything from minor mishaps to death. While I have experienced over and over the accuracy and potency of the Chinese cosmology, I also believe that intent, consciousness, and caution trump a well-placed trinket. Heed the warnings. All cures attract the needed energies to abate otherwise noxious energy. Cures can make a good situation go more smoothly and so much better. Follow your intuition and instincts for your personal space.

My favorite, industrial-strength cure for negative energies is the Salt Cure. This device will pull unwanted energies from a room. They are pennies to make (pun intended because you use pennies!) and they must be replaced each year at the Chinese Solar New Year. Directions for making them are here.

As for other cures, details are listed below, sector by sector. These remedies may shift slightly depending on the home’s “Birth Chart”. If your house faces any of the inauspicious directions, extra caution should be taken. The same is true if a bedroom is in any of the inauspicious directions for the year. Depending on the dwelling’s chart, these influences can be better or worse. Refer to own your home’s drawing.

PLEASE NOTE: The reason I like Flying Star Feng Shui is because it folds so well into other schools of Feng Shui and Chinese Bazi and Zi Wei astrology. That said, if your personal Four Pillars contain any of the animals that conflict with the current Year Pillar, you need to take special precautions. (Please see my article on 2018, Yang Earth Dog) One way you can do this is to be certain your cures and enhancements are in place for your home and office. Dragon has a massive clash this year. Goat and Ox do as well. I mention precautions for health, finances in the Earth Dog article. For your home, I would also recommend using cures this year for the monthly as well as yearly stars. You can get the chart here. Pay particular attention to when the 2 and 5 stars fly into your bedroom and a family room where you may spend a large amount of leisure time. Another important space would be a home office. For these areas, get a metal cure. A 6-coin string is the traditional cure, but many metal objects can be used. Watch the chart and move the cure every month.

InauspiciousNOTE: Listed as “Traditional” Cures or enhancements are those Chinese objects prescribed in traditional Feng Shui. Please contact me for a consultation for ideas on ways to use your own belongings and things you love.

292.50 to 307.50
(150 only)

Grand Duke Jupiter Tai Shui

Very temperamental ruler of the year (there are 60 who cycle through the years, repeating only after 60 years.)

Honor him and do not disturb him (traditional – Picture or statue of Goddess Duo Mu, Mother of the Big Dipper)

Avoid Disturbing this direction. No wind chimes, digging or construction in 2016, do not sit with your back to him

ESE 262.50 to 277.50 ( 150 only)

Year Breaker

Opposite Grand Duke

Honor this Direction, you may face it. No constrution

Do not face this direction, do not dig or do construction

North

3 KillingsShui Po

Financial Loss, sickness

A Religious object (Traditional -3 Protectors, facing South)

Avoid facing this direction

Auspicious:NOTE: for auspicious energy, an enhancement is prescribed instead of a cure.